amt-i Benchmarking Programme

amt-i - the research and consulting arm of Action for Market Towns - is delighted to unveil a new project alongside the Welland Market Town Group (WMTG). WMTG have developed an exciting on-line Market Town benchmarking service which provides Partnerships and Communities with invaluable information on 12 Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) on their locality. These KPI’s include; Footfall Counts, Visitor Satisfaction, Car Park Availability and Usage and Total Number of Commercial Units.

With the ever increasing need and requirement for partnerships to provide evidence, benchmarking supplies a holistic picture of Town Centres, via a simple methodology of collecting, collating, analyzing and reporting useful data. The outputs of benchmarking include:

  • Helping Partnerships address the real issues of how to develop thriving communities using a well defined evidence base.

  • Provision of vital data when applying for project funding

  • Allowing year on year comparisons to be made, supplying a measurement of improvement.

  • The opportunity to compare towns against others in the region, or similar types of towns

The potential for the benchmarking system is vast, and the more localities which are engaged, the more robust the town and regional comparisons will be. With an eye on increasing the use of benchmarking, WMTG have contracted with amt-i to;

  • Market benchmarking via their national networks and promotional materials

  • Work closely alongside WMTG to develop training seminars and case studies of Best Practice

and most importantly

  •  develop a flexible package of support, which users with new or existing Partnerships can purchase to help them navigate the benchmarking process. Support ranges from a simple telephone helpline, to an all encompassing Bespoke Package that offers; Skills and Development Training, Capacity Building, Telephone and On Line Help, Data Validation Analysis and Action Planning.

In the near future the revamped amt-i website will provide Case Studies on how benchmarking has helped Partnerships, and a full list of packages. In the meantime, for a detailed breakdown of costings please contact Mike King, amt-i Senior Research Consultant, on 07818 068982 or mike.king@towns.org.uk.